December Eating

Ah, holiday season! I can almost forget that it is December, and only a few days to Christmas--what with the palm and banana trees, sunny 80-degree weather, and nary a christmas decoration in sight in my neck of the woods. All I have to do, though, to remember what Christmas season means in the greater western world is journey across town to Garden City, the "american/european" shopping mall. This I did unthinkingly last weekend, hoping to pick up a few things for friends here. I walked in the door and almost fell over from shock. I thought I was home! Christmas trees (fake but of the pine variety, which you don't find alive here), lights, frantic(well, not really--who can be frantic in the tropics? you sweat too much!) shoppers, families with hyperactive kids, and stuff, stuff stuff everywhere you turn. Those who know me well know my tolerance for shopping is very thin, and it only took about 7.24 seconds to become overwhelmed. My eyes glazed over, I wandered up and down the aisles of Uchumi (the "big" department store)unable to focus on the task at hand, and eventually walked out with...a muffin? Yes, it is true that even in a crisis situation (shopping) food remains my highest priority and as I ended up in the bakery section (and who wouldn't)and found a banana muffin (!!!) for 700 shillings ($.40) it was clear that I should grab the muffin and get to safety, quickly.

Other food adventures--you know of my love for hummous. It has been a long four months here, searching for garbanzo beans (yes, I know you thought I came to africa to save the world, but when the going gets rough, the tough..they eat, right?)Which apparently have to be imported. As I was wandering through a bit of Kampala the other day (ok, I was lost)I stumbled upon (ran in for safety)a small indian grocery store. What appeared before my wondering eyes? a small bag of garbanzo beans! Images of lebanese food began to dance through my head...

The next task (of course) was to find tahini. Tahini, of course, is sesame seed paste. I hadn't seen it in grocery stories, but I had found a small restaurant "Cowboyz," where the unfortunite wait staff are forced to wear cowboy hats, and they serve a mixture of ugandan snacks, american fast food, and...lebanese food! I wandered in yesterday to get the low-down on hummous ingredients. I asked the young ugandan man, "Do you make your own hummous here?" "No", he replied, "we get it from lebanon." Disappointed I tried again. "Do you have tahini?" When he replied in the affirmative, I almost began to jump for joy. He disappeared into the back to find the blessed tahini. He returned with a jar and charged me an exorbitant price (8,500 Ush= $4.00 : ) which I immediately forked over. Ah, the world has become a brighter place!

So I'm looking forward to this weekend, when the rest of the MCC staff will descend upon Kampala as we plan to go to Kenya on Sunday. I plan to head for kenya with my largest tupperware container stuffed full of hummous...it will (hopefully) make the 12 hour, overnight bus ride a little more bearable. That, and Catch-22 which I have been reading--don't remember the last time a book made me laugh so hard (probably A Prayer for Owen Meany..)We'll be with the East Africa MCC staff for a week of retreat-ish activities and then I'll head to Mt Kenya with Eric to attempt to climb (not the actual peak) but one of the shorter peaks. Although we won't be going up where crampons or ice axes are required, we will see snow. I had to go last weekend to Owino market to look for winter clothes since I neglected (silly me!) to bring them to sunny Uganda. I scored a pair of burton snowboarding pants and jacket and went home happy. Finding hiking boots was a little more difficult but luckily Eric called the other day and said "I'm in the market, I found some size 37 boots, do you want them?" So, i'll be climbing the biggest mountain of my life so far in hiking boots from a market in the village... : ) Oh well. Adventure, right?

I hope all of you are finding time this month in the midst of work, christmas preparations and eating (!!) to enjoy the people around you and preparations for the celebration of Christ's birth. I am so thankful this year for God's provisions and protection, for the Joy we can find in knowing him! Many blessings.

World Aids Day

For those of you who didn't know, last friday (1st December) was WORLD AIDS DAY!! We at Mengo HIV clinic chose to celebrate on 2nd December, at the request of the DMD (deputy medical director) who thought we might be disruptive towards the nursing students and patients with our singing, the marching band's music and the general mayhem that tends to ensue when you gather two hundred people and then attempt to give them all (one) free soda. !!
So our preparations had begun about three weeks beforehand, at a staff meeting, when the subject was first raised. It seemed easy at the time: plan an event to observe this special day. It must include marching, a band, free food, entertainment, and some special guests to give inspiring speeches. No problem!

The problems actually began when we contacted the director regarding our plans: apparently the budget is tight at this time of the year, so she nixed the band, tee-shirts, celebratory baseball caps for the kids, and expensive food. Coming up with a fun event with these limitations seemed a bit more daunting.
But we dug in, I tried to write things down in order to figure out what was actually getting done (this was pointless, as most of the office conversations happen in luganda-I miss most of the important stuff). We ran into a few glitches in the process: the letters I wrote to invite the administration and directors of the hospital mysteriously got lost between our department and theirs; the program changed every five minutes, so that there were multiple versions with starting times varying from 8:00AM to 10:00AM floating around. AND, the guests of honor gave us a scare by not RSVP'ing until that week.
Our director relented on a few of the budget restrictions; we were able to hire a band, and bought not only a soda but a muffin for each of the attendees.

Our day was meant to start at 8:00AM with a march. Our children's club (65 kids) more or less straggled in on time, as did a good number of our adult clients. 8:45 found us waiting--9:00AM found us waiting-- In order to "take to the streets" of kampala we were required to have a police escort (not a bad idea when you consider our streets!) They had been sent a letter, had given their consent and agreed to meet us at 8:00 AM. At 9:00 when they hadn't arrived, I was feeling faint from lack of coffee and breakfast and ran to the clinic for a snack. At 9:10 I heard the marching band playing nearby- I chucked the coffee and sprinted after the parade, which had already left the hospital grounds and was making its way downtown!! 9:15 found me running like a crazy mazungu down the street trying desperately to catch up with the kids, whom I was supposed to be protectiing from the mad motorists.
The kids and adults were marching jubilantly behind the band-our kids showed a remarkable amount of energy for (probably) not having had breakfast and having waited an extra hour in the sun. I had been instructed by the director to be in charge of first aid. Wondering aloud what first aid might be necessary in a parade, my coworker had responded that I should bring bandaids and ibuprofen. We were also stocked with extra water and sugar packets in case dehydration or low blood sugar became an issue. Luckily none of this was a problem, even heading back up Mengo Hill towards the hospital, we didn't lose anybody!

It was really one of the most moving experiences I've had since coming to Kampala--the theme of this year's day was "Stop Aids. Keep the promise." The intention of this theme was to encourage all of us to hold our communities, our governments, and international organizations accountable to the promises that have been made to make treatment and therapy available to all people with HIV, regardless of nationality, economic status, race, religion, or gender. As you know, our resources here in Kampala for anti-retroviral therapy are limited-we have three regiments available here at Mengo-at Mulago (the government hospital) there are a few second line regiments available. Resources to people in the villages (or especially in the north) are even more limited. If you were to do a web search for anti-retroviral therapy, you would most likely find 10 or more different drug combinations that are on the market and available in most developed countries. The first line therapy we use now is not even used in the first world any more due to bad side effects. It is all we have though, and sometimes we don't even have that.
The march was followed by a program. I, in my ignorance, had thought that having a candle lighting ceremony to symbolize the promise we were making and the hope we have in Christ--would be a good idea. However, it doesn't take much thinking to realize that 65 children+fire+a windy day= TROUBLE! Luckily there were no serious burns, but giving each child a candle meant that their attention to the rest of the program was completely lost.
We had a few songs by our children's club (who had spent hours and hours practicing for the last few weekends) a play by our post-test club (adults who are HIV+ but are training to be educators in the community) and speeches by the medical director, the director of the clinic, and the donor(MCC CR Dale Herman-MCC supports the entire drug budget for our clinic and several othe projects, including children's club and the home care program).
It was hard to believe things went so well-even passing out 200 sodas (and collecting all the empty bottles for refunds!) was not that traumatic. We finished on time, and everyone was proud of the job they had done.
After a month of planning and a crazy week leading up to this great day, all I wanted to do saturday afternoon after the program was SLEEP! However, I had made plans with eric to meet up and go white water rafting the next day.. But...that will have to be another story!

Blessings to you all, and a joyous advent season! Thanks for your prayers.

Kwanjula picture

This is a picture from the Kwanjula I attended, back in September (yes, I'm just catching up with technology!!)